Abstract

"October 2004"

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Occupational Therapy. Typescript Project Advisor : Barbara L. Kornblau This study examined the relationship between university faculty attitudes toward academic accommodations and the provision of academic accommodations for students with disabilities. A pretest posttest design was used to examine the relationship between faculty attitudes (willingness, perceptions, and intentions) toward students with disabilities and whether the attitudes and the knowledge one posses about providing academic accommodations influences faculty teaching behaviors. According to the 2000 Census, one out of twelve children and teenagers (ages 520) living in the United States has a physical or mental disability (Cohen, 2002). This statistic indicates that the number of students requiring academic accommodations in post secondary education will continue to grow throughout the next decade. The literature suggests that faculty who are not well informed on how to provide reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities may develop negative attitudes that create additional barriers for these students. Therefore, in an effort to contribute to evidence-based occupational therapy practice, a faculty-training workshop was developed and conducted to evaluate whether training faculty about academic accommodations affected their willingness to provide academic accommodations to students with disabilities. Participants were faculty at Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, Michigan who elected to participate in a four-hour training session on providing academic accommodations to students with disabilities. The results of the study suggest that both knowledge and attitudes (willingness, perceptions, and intentions) of faculty improved as a result of the intervention which in turn can have a positive impact on students enrolled in their courses. The researcher concluded that further qualitative research is needed to address if the training provided did in fact have an impact on the participants' long-term behavior and whether participating faculty are now more willing to provide academic accommodations to students with disabilities as a result of the workshop. Additionally inquiry is recommended with larger and diverse samples to determine the most effective training interventions.